Ad-tech company Criteo expands its operations to India

The company has opened its first office in Gurgaon, with a 10-member teamShashwati Shankar | ET Bureau | May 13, 2016, 08:59 IST

Picture source: ThinkStock Nasdaq-listed Criteo, an ad-tech company headquartered in France has expanded its operations to India. The company has opened its first office in Gurgaon, with a 10-member team. The firm plans to increase its clientele in the emerging business sector by specifically targeting the ecommerce segment.

Criteo, which specialises in performance-display re-targeting, aims to build clients in three verticals within the e-commerce segment, specifically retail clients, online travel agencies and classifieds. In addition to acquiring clients in India, the company will also be on the lookout for acquiring smaller ad-tech players specifically in the big-data analytics space in order to enhance their reach.

“There is a huge growth opportunity in India with a market of 1.3 billion people and 30% already online. We will enhance our presence in the market but cannot disclose the number of clients we are targeting in India.

We can say that up to 21% of revenues come from Criteo’s APAC unit and we are expecting significant growth from India in the years to come,” said Yuko Saito, managing director at Criteo APAC.

The company counts MakemyTrip, AskmeBazaar and Nearbuy.in among its clients. Through performance display targeting, the company’s core functions lie in the platform recommendation and prediction engine. The end-users behaviour, purchasing patterns and travelling routines are tracked through machine learning algorithms, enabling the platform to re-target products the individual was browsing on an e-commerce site.

“Imagine if there’s a video or template that is put together in a micromini-second, which is in a position to print the relevant advertisers’ logo and target the ad to the end-user who has been surfing on the e-commerce site through various browsers, an immediate first party and end-user connection is made,” said Ajeet Kandachar, Criteo’s India MD.

According to Manav Sethi, chief marketing officer at Askme.com, about 98% of the traffic often doesn’t result in meaningful engagement with the advertiser. “We partnered with Criteo in November and since then the platform transactions have doubled. We have seen a 50% increase in conversion rates and the marketing ROI has increased by two times,” said Sethi.